LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz’s chief Nawaz Sharif on Thursday said that some measures taken by the government have been damaging to democracy. He said the government should be respectful of the courts and their verdicts and should not assume the role of the superior courts itself.

He said the government was trying to drag the judiciary into politics and that NAB’s letter to the Supreme Court was evidence to the effect.

Nawaz was speaking to media representatives before departing for London.

He said the judiciary’s restoration was the result of the people’s struggle which was why everyone should cooperate with the courts.

“The government has the mandate of the people which it should respect and therefore respect the judiciary,” Nawaz said.

Nawaz further said that he does not perceive NAB as a “good” institution.

“NAB was created by a military dictator for his own purposes…there is a big difference between the NAB and the Saifur Rahman Commission.”

He said NAB victimised “politicians like Javed Hashmi…people who should have been arrested were made prime ministers and chief ministers and the rest went scot-free”.

Nawaz also charged that “NAB’s first chairman was himself corrupt”.

Responding to a question, Nawaz said that although the media criticises the PML-N for playing the role of a “friendly opposition,” the government couldn’t even take that.

Regarding the Data Darbar blasts, Nawaz said that federal ministers should not use the tragedy to indulge in political point scoring. He said “countless are killed in Karachi on a daily basis, bomb attacks take place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, terrorists also target Islamabad…but the PML-N has never declared the federal government to be a failed entity…nor has it asked the government to resign”.

“We do not want to get into blame games,” Nawaz said.

He further alleged that even within the government, there were people who supported the ideology of the militants and were in favour of suicide bombings and they wanted to “destroy both the government and democracy”.

“There are suicide bombers in the government’s ranks…government should rid itself of these elements and not associate with them,” he said.

Nawaz said “only one political party cannot combat terrorism and for this purpose the whole nation has to come together and be united”.

Regarding Prime Minister Gilani’s proposal to call a national conference for countering terrorism, Nawaz said: This requires a whole lot of homework…government should take all the stakeholders on board so that something concrete comes out of it.

On the distribution of water between the provinces, Nawaz said the issue should not be politicised and that “there will be no compromise on Punjab’s water share”.

Courtesy by dawn.com